(From vancouversun.com) VANCOUVER - Attempts to deal with complaints of sexual harassment

and discrimination against female workers appear to be stalled, the

head of the BC Maritime Employers Association has indicated.

BCMEA

president and CEO Andy Smith said a management proposal to deal with

the problems can't proceed until a union demand to clear up a backlog

of job applicants is dealt with.

But since only 132 of the nearly

2,000 applicants are women and jobs on the waterfront are scarce, it

would be a long time before any real gender equity would be achieved at

the port. Only 4.7 per cent of Vancouver longshore workers are women

now, and only some of them are union members.

"This is an issue

of under-representation," Smith said in an interview. "We won't get the

culture changed with the tiny fragment of women working on the

waterfront."

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